2001.03.23

This was random - a trip to the San Francisco Zoo on a Friday. Sure, I have class on Fridays, but as I had just turned in that EE130 midterm report, I decided I could skip a discussion. Besides, it was spring break, right?

So why a zoo, of all places? Well, Anne wanted to see animals. (Who's Anne? -- let's just say she's a recent college graduate who codes her life away in cubicleville (a.k.a. Javaland) while staring out the window at a flagpole.) Apparently, her friend Jane either didn't care or wanted to see animals too. And as soon as I found out that they had penguins and koalas there, I was sold.

The fake habitat

So I don't know if they had any particular country or landscape in mind when they designed the thing, but it looks like they tried to make the place look exotic or something. Either that, or all of these things just happen to naturally grow in San Francisco...

The caged

Naturally, animals at a zoo are caged. While some may argue that this is wrong, it is still The Way Things Are. Some animals were more caged than others:

I don't remember what this is, but if not for the blatant cage, you'd be able to see that it has a pretty peeved expression on its face.

And there were those that just seemed to accept the caged situation.

I think this was a gorilla of some sorts. He just sat there, and sat there, sometimes he'd scratch his chin and look around as if to say,
"Now what the hell are all these people staring at? I'm just sitting here minding my own business...how can they be so simple-minded as to be amused by that?"

And of course, the ones that probably didn't realise they were caged at all...

In the center, you might be able to see a giraffe - the peeping-tom of all the animal species at the zoo. Look at this - put up any cage or fence of any size, and it can probably see over it.

A zebra here just munches on grass, oblivious to onlookers and the cages which surround him. I think this best exemplifies that Carl's Jr. commercial slogan "Don't bother me...I'm eating."

Peacocks!

Apparently, there is no "peacock section" at the zoo; instead, these birds are free to roam around all over the place and do as they please, uninhibited by cages or fences, or even people with cameras...

Here's a peacock running. Ok, you can't tell that it's running, but trust me on it.

And this is the same peacock after he started to do some weird thing with his neck. Now why I wasted more than one shot on the same peacock is mind-boggling...

Here's a peacock that was hanging out in the same area as the zebras...it almost looks like he's hunting something, lying in wait, ready to pounce at any given moment...

And this is a peacock wandering about a path.

And this is my personal favourite: the albino peacock. That's right, an albino. Incidentally, this is the only one whose plumes didn't blend in with the fence in the background...

Penguins!

Yeeeeah! Penguins! Not just the caffeinated mints or the Linux mascot, but the real waddling birds themselves! They're interesting creatures...

Here are a bunch of penguins. The scary thing is that they were frozen in this pose, as if they knew a picture was about to be taken. Ok, so maybe they were just trying to sun their backs or something, but whatever the case, it was strange...

And here are even more penguins in frozen poses

Apparently, the zoo thinks that penguins are dangerous animals that can bite people's heads off or something, so their legal department made them put up signs like these. Granted, these aren't nearly as useful as the "Caution, overpriced souvenirs" sign outside the gift shop.

And in these two pictures, we have penguins swimming. Birds that swim, now is that cool or what? So what if they can't fly?

Here are some penguins that look like they're about to dive into the water and join the others in swimming. In reality, they just wanted food.

The Bigger Badder Animals

These are the stereotypically dangerous ones that are big and huge and smoke their crack in PVC pipes. Cages won't hold them, so they're given more room, but are still kept at a distance.

This is an interesting one. Looks like it'd be more appropriate in Soda Hall or something, but it apparently describes what these ferocious animals do in their spare time or something...disturbing, if you ask me.

Correspondingly, here's a siberian tiger milling about while waiting for a potential date's info to download to his computer.
Looks like the zoo needs to get DSL...

And this is a polar bear looking around for its bottle of Coke...

And a little baby bear looking for a red tree to munch on

Aussies!

And of course, the koalas and kangaroos too. I think the koala was one of the two stolen awhile back...unless I'm thinking of the wrong zoo.

Koala grabbing eucalyptus leaves to eat

Koala scratching itself...

Koala staring at camera...

Kangaroos apparently eat grass too.

And in the back, you can see one hopping around...

Beware of humans

I think the humans were the most dangerous creatures in the place. Think about it - they can talk to each other, plan things, and cage other animals. That's just wrong. Plus, humans like me carry cameras with them all the time....ewwwww...

Here's a sign warning people not to feed other people, animals, or trees to the bears.

This is Anne and me posing with a fake elephant somewhere near the penguins. Now is it just me, or does it look like the elephant is licking itself?

And here's Jane doing something...I think she's trying to climb an invisible tree or scare off a gopher...I don't really know.

shells

So after all that fun, there was this beach right next to the zoo. Jane is a sea-shell nut (I personally prefer Bourne shells, but then again, that's just me), so we wandered around throwing stones at waves and writing things in the sand and of course, collecting shells.

Here's a shot of the overcast conditions looking out toward the ocean...nice and gloomy....

And here's two shots of Jane and me

And here, buried in the sand, is a sanddollar doing its thing, happily enjoying its existence....

Jane: Look! it's still alive!
Anne: ewwww! it's alive...

the a capella trio

The only other thing of note from this trip was this group of three guys who were harmonising pretty well with their tune at a BART station, though Jane and I still don't know what they were saying. To me, it sounded something like "study porn no more" which seems quite appropriate since there were a ton of those types of shops in the area near that BART station. Jane thinks they were saying "study corn (or Korn?) no more" which I don't think really means anything. Of course, maybe we're both wrong and they were singing in French or something...